EST enters the ESFRI roadmap 2016

Today the European Solar Telescope (EST) enters officially the ESFRI roadmap 2016 for the new Research Infrastructure in the European Community.

The ESFRI Roadmap 2016 identifies the new Research Infrastructures (RI) of pan-European interest corresponding to the long term needs of the European research communities, covering all scientific areas, regardless of possible location.

The 2016 Roadmap consists of 21 ESFRI Projects with a high degree of maturity – including the EST project and other 5 new Projects – and 29 ESFRI Landmarks – RIs that reached the implementation phase by the end of 2015.

The ESFRI Roadmap 2016 was launched on 10 March 2016, in Amsterdam.

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a 4-metre class telescope dedicated to study the fundamental
processes in the Sun that control the solar atmosphere and its activity and the physical conditions in the heliosphere. EST will be optimized for high-resolution multi-wavelength simultaneous multi-instrument observations of the photosphere and chromosphere, as well as magnetic structures therein. One aim is to address the still unresolved and difficult question concerning the emergence of magnetic fields at the solar surface and transfer of magnetic and kinetic energy from subsurface layers to the solar atmosphere.

The EU solar physics community was involved in the development of the project from the beginning, 10 years ago, first with the creation of the EAST consortium, with the elaboration of the conceptual design study, and with the Trans-National Access network SOLARNET (FP7) and GREST (H2020) projects.

The official inclusion of the EST project in the ESFRI roadmap marks a major step towards the detailed study and construction phase of the project.